The Technicolor Phase
by TimeBombTick
Summary: Spock never knew what hit him once she came along. Spock/OC


_I never would have thought that deep space, the place with no gravity, no oxygen, nothing I could ever want would be somewhere I consider safe, but at the moment I feel like everything has changed. I kneeled by Spock, watching helplessly as his breathing got more and more shallow. A line of green trickled from the corner of his mouth, and I must have looked appalled because he said, "Is it bad?" That made me laugh, a pathetic attempt at laughing anyways. His grip on my hand kept getting weaker, and finally I realized I was crying. Saltiness leaked into my mouth, and I licked at it. As I watched the love of my life die, all I wished for the most was for someone to pop out of a bush and say, Surprise! Just kidding. But no one did that, and Spock didn't sit up and wipe the blood from his face as if it were just paint. How could Earth be such a dangerous place? Spock struggled to keep his eyes open, and I bent my head forward and wept with my head on his chest. _

I was in the middle of a make out session with the local drug dealer when the phone rang. Giggling, I shoved him off me and grabbed the phone off the cradle. After a few moments of listening, I said goodbye and hung up. Smokey McPot lay on my couch and looked welcoming, but I took his hand and pulled him up. "I'll see you at school," I promised. I gave him one final bite of his lips and pushed him out. After I locked the door, I sighed heavily and wandered onto the balcony to wait for my next visitors.

With the background of a bright blue sky, fluffy clouds and birds singing their songs, it was quite a pretty setting for me to be told my mother was dead. The cop and the social worker both looked sympathetic, but maybe only because I was such a cute, defenceless little girl. Now I had no one.

After they described with almost too much detail my mother's death (completely innocent car wreck on the way home from getting groceries), they gave me my options. The woman, the social worker, pulled papers out of her briefcase, and shuffled them on her beige pant suited lap as the cop blathered on and on.

My options, I gathered from the endless speech spat out by the man with the badge, were a) I get sent to a foster home until my 18th birthday in 10 months, or b) live with my father.

Now, I'm the kind of person who loves meeting people. And my whole life I'd assumed my father wasn't there because he didn't want me, so I was leaning towards the foster family thing. That is, until the fat cop took a break from rambling and let the social worker tell me what they'd found out about my dad in the few hours they had to research him.

This is the 22nd century, so I've been familiar with space travel for my whole life. But the community I lived in wasn't big on it, so I never knew much about it. The fact's just always been there. It's a whole other thing when I found out my father traveled space for a living. Apparently, from what I learned, he worked on some space ship that was supposed to defend other planets or something. Exciting, right? So as soon as I heard that, I chose to live with my father.

It didn't take long to find him; apparently he was on Earth for a few weeks, staying in a motel somewhere in the deep south. He flew all the way to Toronto by the next day. Meeting him wasn't the climactic experience I'd thought it would be – I pictured slow motion running and a big hug and lots of tears. Instead, the cop just said to me "Anorra, this is your father. Isaac, this is your daughter."

Isaac? Not a very spacey name.

I shook my father's hand, smiled a sweet smile. But really all I was trying to do was not giggle out loud. This man was not human. First of all, he had bushy eyebrows that turned up at the ends and not in a subtle way either. His ears tapered at the tops to a point, and his ink black hair was cut short, and it looked like a shiny black helmet. His tunic was grey, and he was dressed very proper.

"Pleasure to finally meet you," he said politely. I nodded and said same to him.

I struggled for something to say, to save us from the inevitable awkwardness, but amazingly the cop rescued us. "Shall we grab a coffee from the Starbucks?"

Since when do airports have Starbucks? I'll never know. This is probably the last Starbucks on the planet.

The four of us sat in a booth in the tiny restaurant. I ordered a hot chocolate – the only thing I could understand from the menu. After picking up our drinks, we sat in silence for a moment.

"So, Anorra –" the social worker began, but I cut her off.

"Call me Nora."

"Sure, Nora. Do you go to school?" The social worker smiled sickeningly sweet, as if she cared if I went to school or not.

"Yep." I stared into the depths of my chocolate, stirring the tiny marshmallows around with a wooden stir stick.

"What grade are you in?" the cop asked. Even though he knew.

"Twelve."

"What's your favourite subject –" the social worker tried, but I abruptly stood up.

"I have to pee." And with that, I shuffled towards the public bathrooms, breathing heavily. The off-chance that Isaac might let me go into space with him was soooo not worth all this awkward crap. He didn't even seem to be trying to get to know me.

I washed my hands and left the bathroom, and held in a smile as a guy working behind the counter at the Arby's checked out my ass. Story of my life.

--

The coffee visit ended fine. They asked me more questions and then finally were nice enough to let me and Isaac go. As soon as we waved the cop car off, Isaac turned to me and grinned. He made a grand sweeping gesture with his arms and led me to the most beautiful car I had ever seen in my life.

A silver, sleek dealie with black leather interior. And I was going to get to ride in it. I almost passed out from excitement, but I managed to get into the gorgeous vehicle conscious.

That night, I discovered just why my mother had wanted to marry this man. He was _fun_. We cruised the streets of downtown Toronto, with music pumped loud and stopping at every corner store we saw to get Slush Puppies and Twizzlers. It was already late in the night (early in the morning?) when he finally pulled up front of the biggest hotel I'd ever seen. I didn't even know we had hotels like this in Canada.

All I could do was stare as an actual, real-life valet took the keys from Isaac and got into the car. This was going to be a very nice friendship.

Apparently, working in space makes you rich, because we entered the hotel and right away Isaac approached the check-in desk and told them he needed another room for his _daughter_. And that he expected it to be ready right away. With a smug look on both our faces, a concierge gave us a keycard and told us to have a nice night.

First, Isaac showed me his room. It was giant. Golden-beige carpet ran from cerulean papered wall to wall. In the main area, with the massive flat screen and loveseat, a fancy chandelier hung from the high ceiling. The blinds were drawn on the picture window so I couldn't see the view, but we were on the 27th floor so it had to be good.

Isaac tossed his wallet and keys on the dining table, and grinned. "Shall we see your room?" he asked. His voice was deep, really full of bass. It made me feel comforted.

Conveniently, my room was only a few doors down from his. It was slightly smaller, and I was okay with that. As soon as I walked in, I saw the French doors that had to lead to a balcony, and I decided to save that for last.

"I'll let you get settled," Isaac said. He left, and when the door clicked closed behind him, I let my backpack slide off my shoulder to the floor and got to looking around. My main room was smaller than Isaac's, with a smaller, less flashy chandelier. On either side of the TV was a pair of doors, the one closest to the main door led to the bathroom. It might have been small by some people's standards but it was bigger than the bedroom I had in my mom's house.

_Mom..._

Don't think about it.

To distract myself, I went to the other doors and entered the bedroom. It was gigantic. The bed was enormous – it must have been three times the size of the one I normally slept on. It was made so tight you could bounce a coin on it, in sheets of calming blues and greens. The headboard was wooden, with geometric shapes carved into it. There was a bedside table on either side, each with a touch lamp and one with an alarm clock. There was a TV in there, too. Wanting to relax, I sat on the edge of the bed and flicked on the television.

A crime show came on, and I vaguely remembered that it was mom's favourite show.

Don't think about mom.

Distraction, I needed a distraction. I wandered into the main room, then into the bathroom. I rummaged through the cabinets, smelling various shampoo samples and testing the hand creams and blowing the free shower cap into a balloon, then popping it.

Ten minutes later, Isaac opened his door in his plaid PJ pants to find me sniffling on his threshold, desperately trying to not start bawling. Hesitantly, he pulled me into his arms and stroked my hair as I cried.

--

We didn't sleep that night. After I cried myself silly, Isaac sat me on a very comfortable patio chair on his balcony and disappeared into the room for a moment, returning with a box of tissues and two bottles of beer. In the back of my head I added another cool point onto his scoreboard, for letting me drink underage.

He let me sit, blowing my nose occasionally, still hiccupping from the cry. I took in the breezy, polluted night air. It had to be at least 5 in the morning, but we didn't notice. When I got sick of the silence, I asked him questions.

I learned that his species was called Romulan. Apparently, they were the same as another species called Vulcans, except the Vulcans swore off all emotions and the Romulans didn't like that so they became a new species. He told me all about his job with Starfleet, and all his missions and perks and machines. I was so interested; I hung off his every word. He spoke all night, with only me asking a few questions in between.

I didn't even notice the sun was up until it shone right into my eyes and I needed to blink. After cleaning up our mess – my tissues and our empty bottles – we stretched and stood.

"We'd better get some sleep. But first, can I ask you something?" Isaac said as I dumped my used tissues into the trash.

"Go for it," I replied.

"Would you like to come to space with me?"

It was all I could do to keep from leaping for joy, and I calmly said yes. Isaac didn't know I skipped all the way back to my room, and was asleep before my head hit the pillow. In only two days we would leave, and I'd be going into deep space.


End file.
